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Chee Dodge - Crystal Pictorial Navajo Rug : Historic : PC 276

$ 12,000.00

This pristine Hero Twin Pictorial is vibrant and unusual. Attached with a lead seal is the original certificate of authenticity. This paper tag was attached to all Navajo rugs beginning in 1937. It stated for the consumer that the product was a Navajo all-wool woven fabrics and was used by the government as a certificate of genuineness. We have seen lead seals before, but never the paper certificate from this time period.

This article appeared in The Desert Magazine January 1938, page 21

To make this even more special Chee Dodge's name is typed on the certificate, along with Crystal New Mexico. Chee Dodge had a trading post during this time frame. In 1890 Dodge opened a trading post on the Navajo Reservation with a white partner, Stephen E. Aldrich at Round Rock in the Chinle Valley. He also built up a successful livestock business.

Navajo Head Man, Chee Dodge was not a full-blooded Navajo but he had been chosen by a U.S. government as a representative for his people—Dodge eventually won the confidence of his people, serving as a bridge between the white world and the traditional world of the Navajo.

Contact us for more information, pricing or to order – steve@navajorug.com or 520-455-5020 -- We will be glad to help you!

Henry Chee Dodge

Navajo political leaderBirthplace: Fort Defiance, Ariz.Native American Henry Chee Dodge (c.1857–1947) was one of the most famous and revered Navajo tribal leaders.

The identity of Dodge's father is uncertain, but he may have been a white Indian agent or Army officer. His mother was a Navajo-Jemez Indian who was killed during a campaign led by Kit Carson against the Navajos in 1864. The survivors, including Dodge, were forced to walk hundreds of miles from northeast Arizona to northwest New Mexico, where they were confined on the Bosque Redondo Reservation at Fort Sumner. In 1868 Dodge returned to Fort Defiance with his adopted Navajo family.